


neither you know (nor i)

by Anonymous



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27400894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Gaby leaned against him more heavily. "Darling. Were we expecting company?" Her disinterested drawl almost entirely hid her mild curiosity, her movements were obscured by Illya's tall frame where she worked a handgun out of her purse.The man seemed to pose no threat, if one ignored how disarming his smile was. "They never quite prepare you for this, do they?"
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo
Comments: 4
Kudos: 62
Collections: Anonymous, Fic In A Box





	neither you know (nor i)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



They stopped right in front of his apartment. No matter how foolish it would seem merely minutes later, right then Illya had been armed with no small amount of cautious optimism: finding a parking spot that wasn't ten blocks away _had_ to mean that the conversation he had mulled over for months in the deep recesses of his own mind would go over well. Obviously. 

At least when he narrated the incident (much, much later) with as much exaggeration as he could muster, it provoked a laughter that he pretended not to love. His pretense fooled absolutely no one.

At the time, however, he should have smacked her already concussed head against the dashboard, probably would have if he knew it wouldn't be immediately followed by Gaby's complaints about the difficulty of getting blood out of the seats. Instead, he readjusted his legs in the footwell, and narrowly missed knocking his knees into the glove compartment. Again. Gaby had her patented resolute stare down pat as she avoided the conversation Illya was dreading even before he knew what it was about. Or perhaps she was momentarily distracted by the bug squished under the wiper blade. She squinted in a way that meant a tirade about the proper upkeep and maintenance of cars was incoming, and that was about all of the patience Illya had apparently. "What?"

Gaby could be terrifying in the best of ways, a fact that drew more junior agents to her than should have been reasonable. Still, there were few things that worried Illya as much as her look of concern, more so when it was aimed in his direction with all the focus of a skilled sniper. Whatever she read on his face must have been sufficient to convince her to spare his uncomfortably cramped legs in her still-too-small car from suffering more. "Solo left."

\---

A year ago, Illya walked to his apartment from ten blocks away where Gaby managed to wedge in her car in an impossibly tiny spot. He was half-listening to her rant about yet another baby agent who took Gaby wiping the floor with him during sparring practice as an invitation to ask her out (Illya could sympathize with him, really; Gaby wrestled like she fucked, and was gracious in her victory, which had left Illya so, so willing in his defeat). Their hangover was probably the only reason she let him get away with the inattention.

What the hangover could not explain, was what was waiting for him outside his door.

Gaby leaned against him more heavily. "Darling. Were we expecting company?" Her disinterested drawl almost entirely hid her mild curiosity, her movements were obscured by Illya's tall frame where she worked a handgun out of her purse. 

The man seemed to pose no threat, if one ignored how disarming his smile was. The bags that surrounded him would have been an odd choice of weapon, but Illya stayed rigid as he tried to cover Gaby, his gaze icy. "They never quite prepare you for this, do they?" It was definitely not the wink accompanying the extended hand that froze Illya in his steps, no. "My name is Napoleon Solo. I believe I'm what you call a mail order omega."

\---

He stuck by his guns (quite literally too, even when handed over enough paperwork from the _agency_ for Waverly to contentedly swim around in) - the cheap swill that Gaby insisted on poisoning them with was entirely responsible for this mess. This never would have happened with good vodka. The details of the drunken night were still unclear to him, but the consequences stood in Illya's kitchen wearing a perfectly tailored suit. To his credit, Solo never broke out his confident veneer even when he was so clearly unexpected (Illya still wasn't sure if he wanted to use the word unwelcome), when it was so ridiculously evident that their _engagement_ had been a mistake borne of poorly thought out decisions. Even beneath the facade, however, there was one thing Illya could tell for sure - Solo had no other place to go.

"For a year."

He blinked, then realized he had been staring the omega for an unnecessary, stupidly long amount of time (a fact that went unnoticed by no one in his kitchen) before turning to look at Gaby. "A year?"

She pointed at the microscopic words hidden in the sheaves of paper that currently littered her kitchen table. "It says right here. If you aren't satisfied with the prod- with the, uh, omega. You're entitled to break the contact. No hard feelings."

When he joined UNCLE, Illya had given up far more traditionalist thoughts than he thought possible. He knew that cohabiting and sleeping with an alpha like Gaby - for however brief a period - was more subversive than anything an eighteen-year-old newly presented Illya could have imagined. Somehow, he still didn't think even his past self could have pictured living with a contracted omega, even one as attractive as Solo. Not when they weren't even mated, weren't even together. 

At least his place remained as spartan as the barracks he once lived in, it shouldn't be too hard to find place for one more person. He pushed back the chair with an unintentionally loud screech. "Come, let me show you around." Illya hoped his smile looked like less of a grimace than it felt.

Okay, so judging by Gaby's thumbs-up, it wasn't a _resounding_ success. 

\---

A year later, when Illya walked into his apartment it was completely devoid of any traces of Solo. No apron hanging from the lone nail next to the cabinets, no shoes haphazardly tossed next to Illya's own neatly stacked ones, no coffee machine that made the most unearthly noise in the morning. No carefully collected artworks on the wall, no lingering scent of the omega who tried to make Illya's four walls into a home. 

Everything that he had planned to say the night before he left for the latest mission about wanting to give this a real chance, without the contract and their limited time together hanging over their heads - it all vanished with the omega. 

\---

It wasn't as difficult as he imagined it to be. It was worse. Mostly because it was everything he'd never allowed himself to dream of.

From the very beginning, Napoleon Solo was like something out of a catalogue (in a way, Illya supposed he was). Pleasant disposition, efficient around the house, willing to play an attentive companion the times Illya played at normalcy. He did not question Illya's long absences from the house, the odd hours he kept, the sheer amount of weaponry and locked drawers that ought to have been out of character for someone who worked with _security_. But that was just it - living with Solo left Illya's life mostly unchanged - except for where it did change. It was nice to not have to stitch himself up, or change his own dressings; nice to have the soft background sounds of Solo puttering about when Illya was trying to forget the clusterfuck that was a failed op. Sometimes, after a particularly hard day, it was even nice to pretend.

\---

Illya was expecting the agency to remarkably unhelpful in tracking down where Solo could have gone. He wasn't expecting them to have no idea who the man even was. Only once it became painfully obvious that no amount of threats - subtle (not his choice then) or otherwise, could coax anything out of the man in charge, did Illya realize, not for the last time, how foolish he had been.

\---

He scoffed at how remarkably inconspicuous the brownstone looked - but hadn't that been Solo's act from the very start? Drumming his fingers against his thigh was all that kept him from throwing a punch when the door opened to reveal the man in question. Who didn't even look vaguely surprised that Illya had tracked him down, just moved over slightly to let Illya step inside.

"So. You found me."

"Not difficult for a spy. But you knew that already."

The Napoleon Solo in front of him looked older, and more exhausted than the one he knew. Believed he knew. Something. But Illya had come here for answers, and he wasn't leaving without them. Never mind he didn't actually know how to start.

In the wake of his silence, a hint of the _roommate_ he once knew peeked through Solo's features. "If it helps. I was never supposed to be a honeypot." 

"It certainly was not a good one." Of course, that meant little, when they spent the last year dancing around each other. Come to think of it, the uncertainty - for once - did not rest solely with Illya. The late night conversations, the comfort of shared dinners, the easy living in each other's spaces - Illya could be dense about relationships, but this? He knew what it meant, what it had been leading up to before he put the final piece of the puzzle together.

"I know it was you. Last week." 

\---

Every once in a while, they had an assignment such as this - where all things that could possibly go wrong did, and usually in the worst way. The thought that Gaby would use the bugs in his shoes to track him down could only be so reassuring when he was faced with the prospect of at least two interrogations. The best he could hope for was a cracked rib or two, maybe some dislocated fingers to go with the concussion the last set of hired muscles had already given him. Really, this was far from as bad as it could truly get. Or so he convinced himself when the door to his cell opened to reveal more lackeys. Inexperienced as they were with what constituted _real_ torture, Illya had more or less resigned himself to getting through this impassively.

That plan flew out the same window that welcomed the sudden rapid gunfire, making him flinch, especially when it was followed by nothing else. During rescue missions, subtlety was not Gaby's usual trait. Illya did not appreciate that particular implication - the last thing they needed was a rogue third they were unprepared for. Still, there was only so much he could do beyond coughing clumsily when the gas cannister rolled into the room, right between the limp bodies of his would-be tormentors. His last thought before slipping into unconsciousness had been a mild annoyance at the indignity of dying with bloodied snot on his face.

No one was more surprised than Illya when he woke to find himself in a familiar medbay.

\---

"You were sent to inflitrate UNCLE. You saved me instead."

Solo's smile was smaller, softer than what he was used to seeing. But less...empty. "Now that's a story you can sell as a pulp."

Illya felt his own lips quirking up. Their story might come across as one in any of the dozens of paperbacks Gaby insisted she didn't read. But there wouldn't be any kisses in the line of fire, or dramatic confessions of love. 

Instead, when Solo (well, Napoleon now he supposed)- Napoleon held out his hand, Illya let him lead them both to the bedroom.

They had gone about this all backwards, Illya pondered. He couldn't bring himself to care when he brushed his lips against Napoleon's, sensing no fireworks, just the reassuring feeling of _finally_. There was no need to rush, not when Illya knew he could indulge in this for as long as they wanted, the slow as molasses tangle of their tongues, the warmth of hands cupped against cheeks and napes. Napoleon bared his neck beautifully for Illya's taking, and though his instincts kept from screaming at him to bite down and make the man <>his, Illya still felt the shudder running down his spine at the faintest hint of teeth.

There would be time later that evening to strip the clothes off their bodies, trace his hands over the smooth expanse of skin revealed to his eyes, adore the calloused fingertips with his mouth, find all the spots on Napoleon's body that would make him sigh and moan. Plenty of time to rub their cocks together, wrap long legs over his hips, slide inside him, or let Napoleon take him, everything and anything that would end with them spilling together, in perfect sync.

For now, Illya was content to wrap himself around Napoleon and kiss and kiss and kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear scientias - I hope you like this short piece :)


End file.
